Wilderness Update Plus News About My Fungus

Upon my return from the Wilderness, I brought back the following types of data:

27 minutes of footage from a borrowed Sanyo camcorder I was unable to download onto my PC but my son was able, eventually, to download onto his Mac. It's not the greatest quality footage, and the sound and the video are not well synchronized, giving the whole thing the flavor of a 50s era Japanese Mothra movie set, for inexplicable reasons, in the Rocky Mountains. Still, this footage represents my first day and a half in the wilderness, so I want to get this up before the subsequent serial installments. I think Jack can fix the audio-video dissynchrony and post the various installments on You Tube for me, since I have no idea how to do this with Mac software. However, getting him to do it in a timely fashion is proving difficult.

Nearly 60 minutes of Flip Ultra video, which is on my PC, and I can upload, but I am waiting for the first stuff first so as to be minimally confusing to what I suspect with be the paucity of vlog viewers who end up making the Big Commitment to watching the entire Jim de la Selva Americana mini-series.

Approximately 3 hours and 59 minutes of high quality digital stereo audio of me talking, talking, talking, weeping, screaming, laughing, singing, gnashing, stuttering, grunting, laboring, telling bears to scat, and for a very short time, yodeling in the alpine meadows.

489 still photographs, many of them featuring me in various poses, almost always providing some sort of scruffian variation of the Blue Steel look pioneered by Derrick Zoolander

my precious memories of my personal resourcefulness and heroism from the lengthy ordeal, memories that can not ever be taken away or repudiated since I was the only one there and I shall not, will not, dispute any facts that I say occurred. I suppose some neurological researcher somewhere could hook me up to a fMRI to see if he can find any unusual activity patterns among the neurons of my brain's LBL, or Lying Bastard Lobes. But I will vigorously resist any such unlawful invasions of my body and mind and alleged soul with all the vehemence I can muster

a fungus that appears to have taken up residence on the left side of my groin. This may be the result of wearing the same pair of underwear briefs for five consecutive days and nights without taking them off, days and nights in which my nether regions were kept continuously irrigated by my own copious sweat production, dribblings of potable water rendered nonpotable by my kidneys, nocturnal clamminess inside the dank tent chamber and perhaps stoked by my readings of dread-inducing Stephen King, and regular dousings by creek water, rain water, and the odd melting snowflake.

A fungus, of course, was not my initial diagnosis. I was pretty sure at first that I had once again contracted VPDC, one of the most common conditions known to men like me, and the women who love us. Well, pretty much just men like me.

Despite how common it is, there is little if any research money available for its study, a consequence of the puritanism of the previous administration. There is also no cure for VPDC, or Venereal Punishment Disease Cancer. Among teenagers who practice excessive onanism, VPCD can lead to blindness, hair on the palms, and loss in a faith in a benevolent God (though paradoxically strengthening belief in a Horribly Vengeful One.)

Thank god, my swimming coach Bill White told me he was pretty sure I had a fungus infection and not VPDC. He recommended an anti-fungal creme applied twice a day for the rest of my life or a week, which ever came first.

It appears to be working. After three applications, the itch of this lesion has gone from merely maddening to Kierkegaardian. Evidently, the poison has caused the fungi to begin fighting for their lives, like daemons resisting extgermination by Max Von Sydow's Holy Water.

The nonhuman, nonplant miscreants (what exactly are fungi anyhow?) are now Linda Blairing me furiously every waking hour, and I must tie my wandering hands to the bedposts at night to keep from scratching myself into a eunuch in my sleep!

I plan to take my small tube of generic antifungal foot creme (what is the male groin if not a kind of third foot anyhow? one upon which we belly-crawl the earth, leaving a slime trail, impossibly desirable manly molluscs humping our way towards the little females of our kind!) to swimming practice tonight, and then afterward cauterize the area with yet another slather of exorcistic unguent!

How I imagine the mushrooms will scream then!

By the way, here is a picture of what Jock itch, also called tinea cruris or ringworm of the groin, looks like:

Here, on the other hand, is what the Wilderness looks like:

Coincidence that these two species of groin-stabbing pointy entities should look like identical twins?

I don't think so.

In fact, I have concluded that my itch is less the result of an infection per se, and more a case of the wilderness spirit claiming official possession over what has always been one of the wildest, least ruly zones of my body.

There is a River of No Return somewhere out there in central Idaho.

Now there is a much less famous, but equally wild, River of No Return somewhere inside my recently changed undies, as well.

Wild they are, both of them, and leading nowhere you want to be. But, god help you, you cannot resist going!

With luck, I will be able to begin posting footage very soon. Show of hands, please! How many want to see everything I can possibly show you?

Bobinator, do you know of any medications that might work better than generic anti-fungal creme? They used to make this wonder drug years ago called Mycolog, or something like that, which was an antifungal mixed with cortisone creme. I don't know if they make it anymore, but it worked like a dream when I was a teenager.

Dr. Dixon, do you know of such a substance, and can you mail me a free sample if I pay the postage?

Jim, is this your Bobby Deniro look? Were you practicing for a bear encounter?
"Hey you! Yeah you Bear! You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me?"

hehehehehe Jim you caught that from your merkin!
Your fungus needs a name. Any ideas? 'Mungus the Fungus?

Mungo Jerry, the Fungo Fungus!

Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uhChh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh...

In the summertime when the weather is high
You can stretch right up and touch the sky
When the weather's fine
You got women, you got women on your mind
Have a drink, have a drive
Go out and see what you can find

If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal
If her daddy's poor, just do what you feel
Speed along the lane
Do a ton, or a ton and twenty-five
When the sun goes down, you can make it
Make it good in a lay-by

We're no threat, people, we're not dirty, we're not mean
We love everybody, but we do as we please
When the weather's fine
We go fishing or go swimming in the sea
We're always happy
Life's for living, yeah, that's our philosophy

When the winter's here, yeah it's party time
Bring a bottle
Wear your bright clothes, it'll soon be summertime
And we'll sing again
We'll go drivin' or maybe we'll settle down
If she's rich, if she's nice
Bring your friends and we'll all go into town

Jim -- that picture alone should be reason to convince FINA to never revert to briefs only for men. You need some B70 underwear to keep the critters out of your nether regions.

Nice try, Patrick. But I won't fall for your tricks. Me wearing B70 underwear would certainly benefit you, because it would prevent the fungus from escaping its current stomping grounds, perchance to infect the water at a meet coming near you soon.

Jim, is this your Bobby Deniro look? Were you practicing for a bear encounter?
"Hey you! Yeah you Bear! You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me?"

You think I'm funny? I amuse you? Like a clown? You think I'm funny like a ****ing clown?

In fact, the Thornton Bank is temporarily closed and may, in fact, be shuttered forever.

So far I have resisted the urge to post pictures of the lesion(s), but if my doctor does not call back soon, I may have to make direct photographic appeals via this vlog to USMS fungus experts everywhere.